INTRODUCTION
In this article the effects of anabolic androgenic steroids on brain functioning and the psychological problems which occurs due to those effects and the question “Do the changes in brain and nervous system due to steroid abuse affect psychology?” will be examined It is better to start with the definition of steroids. Steroids, organic fat soluble compounds, can be described as the sex hormones which maintains the growth of male and female sexual systems and which are responsible from establishing the secondary sexual characteristics. There are three types of steroids: corticosteroids, androgenic steroids and the hormones which maintain female sexual system and secondary female characteristics. First type of steroids is androgenic steroids which are usually referred as testosterones. They have lots of functions in human body. In addition to maintaining of male reproduction system and male gender characteristics, they are also used in medical treatments like breast cancer and impotence treatments and delaying puberty. They also increase the level of red blood cell and stimulate growth. Anabolic steroids are also derived from testosterone and used by some athletes, bodybuilders and weight lifters, due to steroids’ function of muscle growth stimulation. Anabolic androgenic steroids firstly produced in 1930s to treat an illness called hypogonadism which causes the testes to not produce enough amount of testosterone and nowadays used by many sportsmen besides the fact that using it is an illegal process (unless with a special permission). The second type of steroids is corticosteroids. They are produced in adrenal cortex whose main function is maintaining of body metabolism. Last but not least, estrogen and progesterone are the third type of steroids. Just like androgens in male, they are responsible from female sexual system and secondary sexual characteristics.
As it is mentioned before, anabolic androgenic steroids are used by lots of people especially bodybuilders and weight lifters. Uncontrolled usage of anabolic androgenic steroids causes many psychological and physical side effects on body. They disturb almost all of the human body. Their physical side effects are mainly; increasing the cholesterol level, problems with skin, causing baldness, causing liver damage, disturbing brain functioning and feminizing process in males etc. In addition to its physical effects, abuse of anabolic androgenic steroids causes psychological problems like mood disturbance, aggression, depression, increase in irritability, intense and anger and more hostile attitude toward others etc. About this issue some current research are done by several scientists. Brian Corrican talks about several experiments in one of his article. (1) “One of the earliest papers on psychological effects reported the side effects of anabolic steroids in 32 weight-trained men; 8 56% had a subjective perception of increased irritability and aggression. This also applied to a smaller group of 10 weight-trained female athletes. 9 A more recent report compared 13 anabolic steroid users with 14 non-users and 18 former users. 10 Steroid users had more frequent episodes of anger, which were of greater intensity and duration, and a more hostile attitude towards others.” Similarly, in another experiment which was made by Pope HG Jr and Katz DL proves that steroids cause psychological problems. (2) “We compared 88 athletes who were using steroids with 68 nonusers, using the Structured Clinical Interview. Most strikingly, 23% of steroid users reported major mood syndromes--mania, hypomania, or major depression--in association with steroid use.” Steroids also cause some withdrawal symptoms as Brian Corrican states in his article. (3) “loss of the positive psychological effects and include listlessness; apathy; loss of appetite, libido and self-esteem; feelings of anxiety; difficulty in concentrating; and mood swings.”
Steroids have lots of side effects on human psychology. But what causes those effects? Even though this question still cannot be answered exactly, it is known that steroids’ effects on brain functioning cause some psychological problems. Menard CS and Harlan RE proved that anabolic androgenic steroids have an important role on the central nervous system, and DR Rubinow and PJ Schmidt examine steroids effects on brain circuits which play an important role in mood and aggression. In another experiment Ann-Sophie Lindqvist, Pia Johansson-Steensland, Fred Nyberg and Claudia Fahlk make a research about the levels of monoamines which they think have important effects on psychology.
DO ANABOLIC ANDROGENIC STEROIDS AFFECT PSYCHOLOGY?
As it is mentioned in the introduction part, anabolic androgenic steroids have lots of side effects on human psychology. Steroid users usually feel depressive more frequently than the non users. They also have hostile attitude toward others. Brian Corrigan explains this issue in his “Anabolic Steroids and the Mind” named article. In the introduction part of his essay, he points out two current murder events which happened in Sydney. Evidences prove that those murders are done by two anabolic steroids users and psychologists noticed that those men have more aggressive behaviors than normal people. Corrigan then decides to find out the effects of steroid abuse on human psychology and makes a research about the recent related experiments. In his essay, he mentions from an experiment where 32 steroid user, weight trained men are examined. The result is 56 percent of them show aggressive and irritable behaviors. He also noticed that (4) “Steroid users had more frequent episodes of anger, which were of greater intensity and duration, and a more hostile attitude towards others.” In his essay, he also talks about the withdrawal symptoms that are produced by steroids. In short what he proves is that steroid abuse creates big psychological problems both as it is used and after its withdrawal. Another related research is made by two scientists Pope HG Jr and Katz DL who work in a Biological Psychiatry Laboratory in Belmont. To find out the effects of the anabolic androgenic steroids they compared 88 athletes who use steroid with 68 non user athletes. After the controlled study, they find out that steroid users face some medical problems like (5) “gynecomastia, decreased mean testicular length, and higher cholesterol-high-density lipoprotein ratios than nonusers.” and some psychological problems (6) “23% of steroid users reported major mood syndromes--mania, hypomania, or major depression--in association with steroid use. Steroid users displayed mood disorders during steroid exposure significantly more frequently than in the absence of steroid exposure”. Both of the experiments prove that no all but some steroid users face some psychological problems in addition to medical side effects.
DO ANABOLIC ANDROGENIC STEROIDS AFFECT HUMAN BRAIN OR NERVOUS SYSTEM?
Anabolic androgenic steroids affect human psychology, but how those effects occur in human body is still a question to discuss. Even though nobody could still answer this question completely, steroids effects on brain and nervous system are first things that come to minds. A lot of research is made to prove the fact that steroids have side effects on brain and nervous system. Menard CS and Harlan RE make an experiment on 10 intact and 10 castrated male rats. They give the rats high levels of androgenic anabolic steroids. (7) “(AAS; 14 daily injections of sesame oil or a cocktail of 2 mg/kg testosterone cypionate, 2 mg/kg nandrolone decanoate, and 1 mg/kg boldenone undecylenate).” They see that all of the rats are exposed to immunoreactivity changes. (8) “Administration of AAS increased the intensity of immunoreactivity in most classical androgen target sites and increased both the intensity of immunoreactivity and number of immunoreactive cells in most non-classical androgen target sites. These results may suggest that androgen receptors in the brain are up-regulated by AAS. The simultaneous androgen receptor up-regulation in these regions by AAS may account for the complex anabolic steroid abuse syndrome.” That experiment proves that anabolic, androgenic steroids play important roles in nervous system and may cause some problems on nervous system.
DO THE CHANGES IN BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM DUE TO STEROID ABUSE AFFECT PSYCHOLOGY?
It is learnt that steroids have some effects on human nervous system, but we still don’t know whether the effects on brain and nervous system affect psychology or not. DR Rubinow and PJ Schmidt’s essay may answer the question. (9) “In animals, the effects of androgens on brain structure and function are well-established and profound, with behavioral implications extending far beyond reproduction. Androgens play a prominent role in the organization or programming of brain circuits, which are subsequently activated by gonadal steroids. In humans, roles for androgens have been described, albeit inconsistently, in the regulation of sexuality, aggression, cognition, emotion, and personality.” What they suggest is that androgenic steroids have an important role on brain circuits which have big effect on mood and psychology. In another research several scientists prove that anabolic androgenic steroids affect the levels of brain monoamines that, as they suggest, have important effects on psychology. They make an experiment on rats for (10) “two weeks with nandrolone decanoate; 15 mg/kg. The results showed that AAS treated animals exhibited enhanced dominant behaviour in the competition test compared to controls. AAS animals had significant lower levels of serotonin in basal forebrain and dorsal striatum compared to controls.” What they actually prove in this experiment is that anabolic androgenic steroids affect some substances like serotonin and dorsal striatum which play important role on behaviors of the animals.
CONCLUSION
Besides the fact that effects of steroids on brain and nervous system seem to be the possible reason of the psychological problems due to steroid abuse, the question which is ask in the first sentence of the essay still cannot be answered completely. To illustrate, in the last experiment mentioned the increase in serotonin in basal brain and dorsal striatum might be somehow irrelevant with the psychology problems. To answer this question completelly lot of researches ought to be made by biologists and psychologists together. Nevertheless, even if the effects of psychological problems and nervous problems are unrelated, the side effects of steroids both on psychology and nervous system are obvious and the best way is to stop using steroids to have more muscular body. Probably, in future the usage of steroids in medicine will be wider and maybe in future steroids without any side effects will be available.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(1),(3),(4) Brian Corrican, Australasian Medical Publishing Company “Anabolic Steroids and the Mind” MJA 1996; 222-226, 06.05.2009
(2), (5), (6) Pope HG Jr., Katz DL. Biological Psychiatry Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Mass. “Psychiatric and medical effects of anabolic-androgenic steroid use. A controlled study of 160 athletes.” 1994 May; 51(5):375-82, 06.05.2009
(7), (8) Menard CS, Harlan RE. “Up-regulation of androgen receptor immunoreactivity in the rat brain by androgenic-anabolic steroids.” 1993, vol. 622, no1-2, pp. 226-236 (22 ref.), 06.05.2009
(9) DR Rubinow and PJ Schmidt National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-1276, USA. “Androgens, brain, and behavior” 1996, by American Psychiatric Association 06.05.2009
(10) Ann-Sophie Lindqvist, Pia Johansson-Steensland, Fred Nyberg and Claudia Fahlke Department of Psychology, Göteborg University, P.O. Box 500, SE-405 30 Göteborg, Sweden and Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Division of Biological Research on Drug Dependence, Uppsala University, P.O. Box 591, S-751 24 Uppsala, Sweden “Anabolic androgenic steroid affects competitive behaviour, behavioural response to ethanol and brain serotonin levels” Received 11 May 2001; revised 17 October 2001; accepted 17 October 2001. Available online 26 November 2001., 06.05.2009
In this article the effects of anabolic androgenic steroids on brain functioning and the psychological problems which occurs due to those effects and the question “Do the changes in brain and nervous system due to steroid abuse affect psychology?” will be examined It is better to start with the definition of steroids. Steroids, organic fat soluble compounds, can be described as the sex hormones which maintains the growth of male and female sexual systems and which are responsible from establishing the secondary sexual characteristics. There are three types of steroids: corticosteroids, androgenic steroids and the hormones which maintain female sexual system and secondary female characteristics. First type of steroids is androgenic steroids which are usually referred as testosterones. They have lots of functions in human body. In addition to maintaining of male reproduction system and male gender characteristics, they are also used in medical treatments like breast cancer and impotence treatments and delaying puberty. They also increase the level of red blood cell and stimulate growth. Anabolic steroids are also derived from testosterone and used by some athletes, bodybuilders and weight lifters, due to steroids’ function of muscle growth stimulation. Anabolic androgenic steroids firstly produced in 1930s to treat an illness called hypogonadism which causes the testes to not produce enough amount of testosterone and nowadays used by many sportsmen besides the fact that using it is an illegal process (unless with a special permission). The second type of steroids is corticosteroids. They are produced in adrenal cortex whose main function is maintaining of body metabolism. Last but not least, estrogen and progesterone are the third type of steroids. Just like androgens in male, they are responsible from female sexual system and secondary sexual characteristics.
As it is mentioned before, anabolic androgenic steroids are used by lots of people especially bodybuilders and weight lifters. Uncontrolled usage of anabolic androgenic steroids causes many psychological and physical side effects on body. They disturb almost all of the human body. Their physical side effects are mainly; increasing the cholesterol level, problems with skin, causing baldness, causing liver damage, disturbing brain functioning and feminizing process in males etc. In addition to its physical effects, abuse of anabolic androgenic steroids causes psychological problems like mood disturbance, aggression, depression, increase in irritability, intense and anger and more hostile attitude toward others etc. About this issue some current research are done by several scientists. Brian Corrican talks about several experiments in one of his article. (1) “One of the earliest papers on psychological effects reported the side effects of anabolic steroids in 32 weight-trained men; 8 56% had a subjective perception of increased irritability and aggression. This also applied to a smaller group of 10 weight-trained female athletes. 9 A more recent report compared 13 anabolic steroid users with 14 non-users and 18 former users. 10 Steroid users had more frequent episodes of anger, which were of greater intensity and duration, and a more hostile attitude towards others.” Similarly, in another experiment which was made by Pope HG Jr and Katz DL proves that steroids cause psychological problems. (2) “We compared 88 athletes who were using steroids with 68 nonusers, using the Structured Clinical Interview. Most strikingly, 23% of steroid users reported major mood syndromes--mania, hypomania, or major depression--in association with steroid use.” Steroids also cause some withdrawal symptoms as Brian Corrican states in his article. (3) “loss of the positive psychological effects and include listlessness; apathy; loss of appetite, libido and self-esteem; feelings of anxiety; difficulty in concentrating; and mood swings.”
Steroids have lots of side effects on human psychology. But what causes those effects? Even though this question still cannot be answered exactly, it is known that steroids’ effects on brain functioning cause some psychological problems. Menard CS and Harlan RE proved that anabolic androgenic steroids have an important role on the central nervous system, and DR Rubinow and PJ Schmidt examine steroids effects on brain circuits which play an important role in mood and aggression. In another experiment Ann-Sophie Lindqvist, Pia Johansson-Steensland, Fred Nyberg and Claudia Fahlk make a research about the levels of monoamines which they think have important effects on psychology.
DO ANABOLIC ANDROGENIC STEROIDS AFFECT PSYCHOLOGY?
As it is mentioned in the introduction part, anabolic androgenic steroids have lots of side effects on human psychology. Steroid users usually feel depressive more frequently than the non users. They also have hostile attitude toward others. Brian Corrigan explains this issue in his “Anabolic Steroids and the Mind” named article. In the introduction part of his essay, he points out two current murder events which happened in Sydney. Evidences prove that those murders are done by two anabolic steroids users and psychologists noticed that those men have more aggressive behaviors than normal people. Corrigan then decides to find out the effects of steroid abuse on human psychology and makes a research about the recent related experiments. In his essay, he mentions from an experiment where 32 steroid user, weight trained men are examined. The result is 56 percent of them show aggressive and irritable behaviors. He also noticed that (4) “Steroid users had more frequent episodes of anger, which were of greater intensity and duration, and a more hostile attitude towards others.” In his essay, he also talks about the withdrawal symptoms that are produced by steroids. In short what he proves is that steroid abuse creates big psychological problems both as it is used and after its withdrawal. Another related research is made by two scientists Pope HG Jr and Katz DL who work in a Biological Psychiatry Laboratory in Belmont. To find out the effects of the anabolic androgenic steroids they compared 88 athletes who use steroid with 68 non user athletes. After the controlled study, they find out that steroid users face some medical problems like (5) “gynecomastia, decreased mean testicular length, and higher cholesterol-high-density lipoprotein ratios than nonusers.” and some psychological problems (6) “23% of steroid users reported major mood syndromes--mania, hypomania, or major depression--in association with steroid use. Steroid users displayed mood disorders during steroid exposure significantly more frequently than in the absence of steroid exposure”. Both of the experiments prove that no all but some steroid users face some psychological problems in addition to medical side effects.
DO ANABOLIC ANDROGENIC STEROIDS AFFECT HUMAN BRAIN OR NERVOUS SYSTEM?
Anabolic androgenic steroids affect human psychology, but how those effects occur in human body is still a question to discuss. Even though nobody could still answer this question completely, steroids effects on brain and nervous system are first things that come to minds. A lot of research is made to prove the fact that steroids have side effects on brain and nervous system. Menard CS and Harlan RE make an experiment on 10 intact and 10 castrated male rats. They give the rats high levels of androgenic anabolic steroids. (7) “(AAS; 14 daily injections of sesame oil or a cocktail of 2 mg/kg testosterone cypionate, 2 mg/kg nandrolone decanoate, and 1 mg/kg boldenone undecylenate).” They see that all of the rats are exposed to immunoreactivity changes. (8) “Administration of AAS increased the intensity of immunoreactivity in most classical androgen target sites and increased both the intensity of immunoreactivity and number of immunoreactive cells in most non-classical androgen target sites. These results may suggest that androgen receptors in the brain are up-regulated by AAS. The simultaneous androgen receptor up-regulation in these regions by AAS may account for the complex anabolic steroid abuse syndrome.” That experiment proves that anabolic, androgenic steroids play important roles in nervous system and may cause some problems on nervous system.
DO THE CHANGES IN BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM DUE TO STEROID ABUSE AFFECT PSYCHOLOGY?
It is learnt that steroids have some effects on human nervous system, but we still don’t know whether the effects on brain and nervous system affect psychology or not. DR Rubinow and PJ Schmidt’s essay may answer the question. (9) “In animals, the effects of androgens on brain structure and function are well-established and profound, with behavioral implications extending far beyond reproduction. Androgens play a prominent role in the organization or programming of brain circuits, which are subsequently activated by gonadal steroids. In humans, roles for androgens have been described, albeit inconsistently, in the regulation of sexuality, aggression, cognition, emotion, and personality.” What they suggest is that androgenic steroids have an important role on brain circuits which have big effect on mood and psychology. In another research several scientists prove that anabolic androgenic steroids affect the levels of brain monoamines that, as they suggest, have important effects on psychology. They make an experiment on rats for (10) “two weeks with nandrolone decanoate; 15 mg/kg. The results showed that AAS treated animals exhibited enhanced dominant behaviour in the competition test compared to controls. AAS animals had significant lower levels of serotonin in basal forebrain and dorsal striatum compared to controls.” What they actually prove in this experiment is that anabolic androgenic steroids affect some substances like serotonin and dorsal striatum which play important role on behaviors of the animals.
CONCLUSION
Besides the fact that effects of steroids on brain and nervous system seem to be the possible reason of the psychological problems due to steroid abuse, the question which is ask in the first sentence of the essay still cannot be answered completely. To illustrate, in the last experiment mentioned the increase in serotonin in basal brain and dorsal striatum might be somehow irrelevant with the psychology problems. To answer this question completelly lot of researches ought to be made by biologists and psychologists together. Nevertheless, even if the effects of psychological problems and nervous problems are unrelated, the side effects of steroids both on psychology and nervous system are obvious and the best way is to stop using steroids to have more muscular body. Probably, in future the usage of steroids in medicine will be wider and maybe in future steroids without any side effects will be available.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(1),(3),(4) Brian Corrican, Australasian Medical Publishing Company “Anabolic Steroids and the Mind” MJA 1996; 222-226, 06.05.2009
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